Listening To Your Inner Voice Before Riding – Do You Do It?

Vintage Flying A Gasoline PumpOn Long Island’s north shore sits Jamesport Auto Service. I’ve passed it a hundred times but never noticed the vintage Flying A gas pump until yesterday.  I simply had to stop for a picture. As I pulled into their lot and took my camera out of my tankbag, I somehow managed to accidentally pull my Blackberry out as well. I never heard it hit the ground and didn’t notice it was gone until I got home.

The insult to injury is that I can see the phone’s pink case laying near the puddle in the photo taunting me. I did go back for it, but it was gone by the time I returned. I’m kind of surprised that someone would keep a found telephone, but eh, whaddayagunnado? I initialized it, reported it lost/stolen and got a new one today.

Jamesport Auto Service Long Island

Before I left the house I wavered on whether I should go out for a ride or not. My first inclination was no, but I went anyway. When I returned home and discovered that I’d lost my phone I immediately said, ‘See? I knew I shouldn’t have gone.’ If I hadn’t gone for a ride I wouldn’t have lost my phone, I wouldn’t have wasted the time going back for it and I wouldn’t be out $50 to replace it.

In this case the consequences of me ignoring my inner voice were no big deal. In the scope of riding a motorcycle, sometimes not listening to your intuition can have dire consequences.

KRAMER: Now what does the little man inside you say? See you gotta listen to the little man.

GEORGE: My little man doesn’t know.

KRAMER: The little man knows all.

GEORGE: My little man’s an idiot.

This post is nothing without you:

  • Do you always listen to the little voice inside before riding?
  • Have you ever had anything good or bad come of listening or not listening to it?

Fuzzygalore

Rachael is the whimsical writer behind the 20+ year old Girlie Motorcycle Blog. As a freelance blogger, she is on a mission to inspire laughter, self-examination, curiosity, and human connection. Girlie Motorcycle Blog can be found on several Best Motorcycle Blog lists.

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11 Responses

  1. ArcDeDucati says:

    I try my best to listen to the little man, but sometimes he gets ignored, ie when I decide against binging the rain gear. He surely does know all and gives you a swift kick in the ass after not listening to him.

  2. FuzzyGalore says:

    Listening To Your Inner Voice Before Riding – Do You Do It? http://goo.gl/fb/HHcx

  3. DUC748 says:

    Which Blackberry did you get to replace it? They’ve finally replaced the trackballs in favor of a trackpad which is MUCH nicer; our users are hell on the balls which means I get to place service calls on them quite often. For me, that’s worth the extra $50 as the device should last much longer before taking a dump on you. =)

    • Fuzzygalore says:

      I had an insurance service that just replaced the exact phone and had it to my door in under 24 hrs because I need it for work. So, its exactly the same. I’m not sure which model it is but it does have a trackball. I know yours was a little different than mine.

      This morning i slipped and fell in the office lobby again sending my new phone flying on the marble. It was like a yard sale. The battery went in one direction, the battery cover another and the phone went tumbling in still another. It’s so embarrassing being me 😆

  4. Fuzzygalore says:

    @Arc – If you think for a minute you might need your raingear.. BRING IT! Its like a guarantee it won’t rain 😉

  5. DUC748 says:

    Didn’t you end 2009 on your butt and now you’re bringing in 2010 on it? LOL Was it raining up there? I started the morning cleaning (still falling) sleet off my car.

    My Blackberry was a Bold 9000 which was recently replaced with a Bold 9700 (trackpad, slightly smaller). The 9K had a gig of internal memory which was nice (GP blocks accessing the SD card) while the 9700 only has 256mb…should really affect me though at work.

  6. soth says:

    Sometimes I listen to that voice, sometimes I don’t, it depends on the situation.

    For example – We had just spent the 3 days banging down every twisty road between NYC and The Dragon. On day 4 when we hit the Cherohala I wasn’t “feeling it” and hung back. In the end it was a good decision because the Skyway is no place to make a mistake going 100mph+.

    The other side of the coin… when out riding sometimes conscience will tell me to roll off the throttle but instead, I’ll twist it harder. Stupid? Yes! But I’ve found that I can push through the little voice and make him (or her) shut the hell up.

    Smart? Most Definitely not, but then again, I never said I was smart. I may be splitting philosophical hairs here but I think we all have that inner voice that may or may not give us good advice, and we all have our true inner voice. Depending on how well one knows oneself, folks may have the ability to filter out the right voice for them to listen to… and I’m not talking about schizophrenia either. It’s just matter of getting to know yourself.

    I made no sense.

    I suck. Sorry.

  7. GLantern says:

    I generally never listen to the voice, in my mind that intuition, a gut feeling or whatever of what might happen is just a feeling from past experiences. You don’t know what will happen until you do it. Granted if i feel “off” or i’m not riding up to my usual level i do always back off for safety’s sake. That is just exhaustion or maybe something is bothering me that i can’t shake. But i have never skipped a ride or not gone out on a track because i had a “bad feeling”.

    If i listened to the voice i wouldn’t ever do a 500mile sunday ride.

  8. Pokie says:

    That inner voice is almost always conservative, and usaully advises you to use common sense, but inspiration and joy usually only comes from pushing yourself to your limits and returning home safely. I dont want to die, I just dont want to be afraid to live.

    Best wishes to you all. Pokie

  9. Motorcycle Grandma says:

    I usually listen to that inner voice. I was mad as all get out one day, and just wanted to get on my bike and ride. I couldn’t find my riding boots, couldn’t find my insurance papers and was getting madder by the minute. Finally found both and when I went to open the door to take off, there was my son with his wife and daughter. It was then that I remembered I should never get on my bike angry.
    I have a photo of my dad and I on his motorcycle when I was only 18 months old. I have a photo of my grand daughter and her dad (my son) on my bike as she just turned 18 months old. So far she loves being in the garage working on the bikes and cars. Someday I hope to see a photo of her and her kids on a bike.

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